Texas Rangers Blog

Rangers’ catching situation unsettled, but answers will be hard to find in free agency

Mike Napoli is a free agent. Geovany Soto is eligible for salary arbitration but almost certainly won’t be tendered a qualifying contract. And the open market is notably thin.

Not exactly an ideal time to be reconstructing a catching staff is it?

A year ago, the Rangers were weighing whether to offer Napoli a multi-year deal and he was wondering whether three years guaranteed or four would be satisfactory. The good news for the Rangers is now a one-year deal might suit both of their needs. The Rangers still don’t have a catcher in the minor league system ready to contribute but hardly want to get tied down to a 31-year-old catcher/DH who is best suited to catch between 50 and 60 games. And Napoli could use the next year to re-establish his value to get that multi-year deal.

Soto, too, could be back. Though the Rangers probably won’t offer arbitration off of his $4.3 million salary, they wouldn’t mind having him back to split duties.

Quite frankly, unless the Rangers want to dive in and make a big play for Joe Mauer, the only likely free agent with solid offensive numbers is Chicago’s A.J. Pierzynski. He will be 36 in December.

And the Rangers must decide how much they value offense vs. defense here. Despite the catching unit’s composite .225 batting average, the Rangers ranked in the upper half of MLB in catching OPS (14th). They ranked 13th of 14 teams in the AL in caught-stealing percentage. Over their last six regular-season games plus the wild-card game, the Rangers did not catch any of the five runners who tried to steal.